Bailout Follies

To no one's surprise, after voting down the first bill and seeing the Senate put pressure on them by passing a bailout proposal, the House went along last Friday and passed a similar bill itself. Arizona's delegation, which had unanimously voted against the original bill split 4-4 the second time around (Giffords, Mitchell, Pastor, Shedagg were the yes votes).

I am not opposed to some form of throwing taxpayer money into the system. The situation is clearly dire, and by all accounts Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, one of the chief originators of the bailout proposal, is an expert on the Great Depression ... so I accept the thesis something needed to be done, as galling as that is on many levels.

What I don't accept is that this was the only approach to be tried. While there has certainly been a great number of modifications added, the original framework - give $700 billion to the Treasury department to spend as it deems best - remains. As far as I can tell from what I have read, no other approach was ever considered at all, much less considered seriously.

Why not? Numerous other bright, well-respected economists have, since the original proposal came out, giving variations of the line "Well, it's better than nothing, but X would be a better approach". I am no economist, so take anything I say below with a large heaping spoonful of salt, but two other proposals which seemed reasonable to me included:

* Give money directly to the commercial banks. The idea was to encourage the commercial banks to lend money to each other again, thus unlocking the "credit crunch" which is supposedly breaking down the commercial gears.

* Use the money to purchase actual foreclosed homes. The idea was that by purchasing these assets outright it turns the bad investments into good ones. The money eventually would make it's way back to the companies holding the mortgage notes. Hey, if trickle-down economics is supposed to be so great, what's wrong with a trickle-up approach? As an added bonus, families would get out from under mortgages they can't sustain.

Either of these approaches (and others I have seen as well) would be more palatable to me than throwing money directly at the Wall Street companies that got themselves in trouble in the first place.

I'd be more understanding if the entire affair had been proposed and voted on in a 48-hour period. As things went, however, there was time (maybe not plenty of time, but time) to consider alternatives ... but apparently this never occurred.

What does it say about the Bush administration that it's first response to a crisis is a proposal that basically says "Give the Secretary of the Treasury $700 billion no strings attached" and the response of the Democratic Congress is to attach a few strings and then go along? Nothing good about either.

The Blind Pig Finds an Acorn

Not even President Bush, no matter how desperately he strives, can manage to be wrong all the time ... and he made the right decision this week when he quickly responded to an emergency call from the World Bank for $500 million more in food aid by pledging $200 million more from the U.S.

There has been a fair bit of discussion recently about the rising cost of food here at home, but matters are far worse elsewhere, and there have been outbreaks of food riots in Egypt and Mozambique. As the cost of fuel helps drive prices higher, things will only degenerate.

The most important part of the President's statement, however, wasn't the pledge of more money, but rather the push to loosen current U.S. law, which requires all food purchased for aid purposes to be bought here and shipped to its foreign destination.

That requirement limits the effectiveness of the aid in a multitude of ways. Not only does the greater shipping distance mean less money spend on actual food (particularly given the increased cost of shipping is a major cause of the current crises) and more time for food to arrive where it is needed, but it also prevents the ancillary benefits which might come from providing some monetary influx to farmers in African nations, for the companies there which would handle the shipping, etc.

It all makes sense ... unless you are, say, a member of the US shipping industry, in which case the suffering of people of a different nationality means little compared to the extra money in your wallet ... as group representative Gloria Tosi told the NY Times last fall, expecting shippers to give up some of their little pot of gold, even if it might save some hundreds or thousands of lives, is "politically naive".

She's right of course ... but it's also the right thing to do. Let's hope this is an issue the President and Congress can manage to find some actual bi-partisan agreement on.

First-hand observations

I had an opportunity to listen to John McKay discuss his feelings and beliefs about the 2006 Attorney General scandal, the same issue Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton were recently cited for contempt of Congress for failing to testify about, and which Congress is now taking the Administration to court over for it's refusal to press the contempt charges.

Given the amount of time which has passed, I'd prefer Congress should just send the the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Ms. Miers under the inherent contempt statute, but that's a different matter.

Back to McKay. What makes his thoughts on the subject particularly compelling to me, in addition to the fact he was one of the Attorney General's directly affected by the mess, is his background. His family among the prominent Republican families where he lives, and had had, prior to being named Attorney General, been actively involved within the Republican party. Whatever else he might be accused of, he can't be accused of party-based bias.

As McKay noted, though, upon being named Attorney General he tried to lay the pasty aside and follow the law rather than a party agenda ... an approach anathema to this administration.

He said when the events first occurred he didn't have much of a strong opinion, but as time has passed and more information has come out, he is now strongly of the opinion at least some of the firings were clearly politically motivated. In particular, he cited David Iglesias of New Mexico (who refused to pursue an alleged voter-fraud case), Carol Lam of Southern California (who was actively pursuing several high profile cases against Republicans in the area, and Todd Graves of Missouri (another failure to pursue voter fraud).

McKay noted he felt the Graves case was especially egregious, given his successor rushed to bring the voter fraud charges up shortly before the election that November. Five months after the election, in April 2007, the case was summarily thrown out of court, something McKay noted is extremely rare, and which points to the weakness of the claim.

McKay was asked about his own firing, and did feel his case was similar to that of Iglesias and Graves. In the 2004 elections Democrat Christine Gregoire defeated Republican Dino Rossi in the Washington Governor's race by a mere 129 votes after a recount which initially saw Rossi as winning (the two are scheduled for a rematch this fall). He talked about the pressure he received to bring voter-fraud charges to court over the race, but said on looking at the evidence there just wasn't anything there. He didn't feel, however, there was the level of evidence in his case that the matter was key to his firing as there is for the Iglesias and Graves removals.

All-in-all an interesting discussion. While he never came out and said as much, McKay's tone on several questions definitely implied disgust with the Bush administration and the whole sordid tale. The investigation has been stalled long enough, and if it takes marching Miers in under armed guard to get her to testify, well, it's time to do it.

The wheels of justice turn ...

... they just turn at a glacial pace.

The House of Representatives finally got around to issuing contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton for refusing to respond to a summons to testify about their knowledge of the fired U.S. Attorney scandal.

Hey, it only took eight fricking months to finally take this much needed step. Good thing they expedited it.

In response, House Republicans had a sit-in, most of them leaving the chambers for the vote and terming it a "witch hunt". If I were Harriet, I wouldn't put up with being called such names by such people.

There was a nice side-effect of the Republican pouting though - the House adjourned without resolving the FISA issue, meaning the current temporary bill lapses this weekend, despite all our President's foot-stomping over the need to get a new bill or he can't protect us, even as he threatened to veto another temporary extension, or a bill which didn't include telecom immunity, which clearly demonstrates his priorities are, in order:

1. Getting his way.
2. Protecting his telecom friends from the angered reactions of their repeated law-breaking.
3. (At best) Protecting the country. I suspect this is actually well down his list.

I suspect the country will get along just fine without the administration minimally less fettered abilities to spy on U.S. citizens within in the U.S. without benefit of court oversight, and without the telecom companies being pardoned for their misdeeds.

Clinton disconnect

I've seen discussion lately about the possibility of a "reverse coattails" effect if Hillary Clinton garners the Democratic presidential nomination. The idea seems to be Democratic members of Congress who won seats in 2006 in traditionally Republican districts are concerned the prospect of a Clinton presidency will cause conservatives to rally to the polls, voting against not just Clinton but the Democratic congress-person as well.

Reading this makes be think both sides are having metal disconnect issues concerning Clinton.

One the conservative side, no matter how much one might dislike Clinton's views, she's indisputably the most "centrist" of the leading Democratic candidates ... or all the Democratic candidates for that matter. Not that any conservative would be happy with any Democratic president (just as I am not likely to be thrilled if a Republican wins next year), but I would still think a truly informed conservative voter would be much more concerned about the prospect of a Edwards administration, say, than they would be about a Clinton one. If Obama or Edwards wins office there will be a much sharper "yank" to the left (in my opinion) than if Clinton wins.

From the liberal side, there is concern about Clinton's views, that she's not "progressive enough" ... and I share those concerns. She won't be getting my vote in the primary. Still, to label her as "no different" than the Republican candidates, or to call the prospect of a Clinton candidacy as "Bush's third term" (which Liza does in comments in this thread, with Roger agreeing, and I have heard the expression elsewhere) is going much too far.

There are reasons conservatives are up in arms over Clinton. Yes, a lot of those reasons are historical, but that history includes some real differences on positions. Anyone who doesn't think Clinton is far more likely to promote "progressive" policies on health care, foreign policy, stem cell research, immigration, education, etc. than any of the Republican candidates has blinders on. She may not be as progressive as desired, but if she wins the nomination she'll be more progressive than the alternative, and by a significant margin.

Compassionate Conservatism in action

This has already been posted about in a number of place, but apparently the US Army is attempting to recover some of the bonuses it paid to soldiers who were injured in combat seriously enough to not be able to fulfill their terms of enlistment.

As noted at the link, Dem Congressman Jason Altmire has already introduced legislation to prevent this practice, which should never have occurred in the first place. I'm sure by challenging the army on this, he will shortly beheld up as yet another Democrat who "doesn't support the troops".

After all, once they are severely wounded and can't hold a gun or take a bullet anymore they're no longer "troops" but civilians, so Conservatives don't feel the need to pretend to care about them anymore.

Dead-end game

After months of inaction, the House Judiciary Committee yesterday forwarded Contempt of Congress charges against former White House aides Joshua Bolton and Harriet Miers to the full House of representatives.

Considering the original subpoenas Bolton and Miers refused to comply with were issued last summer, and the committee voted to find both in contempt on July 25, it can hardly be said matters have been rushing to a head. Still, I guess it took a while to scribe the 862-page document forwarded to the full House describing why the committee feels the two need to be charged.

Bolton and Miers each cited Executive Privilege in refusing to comply with the subpoenas. I am not a lawyer, but it does seem their case is very weak:

* The Supreme Court has found the privilege is "not absolute".
* Bill Clinton, as President, had his privilege claims overturned by the court and was forced to testify over a matter (the Lewinsky affair) which was of far less significance to the national well-being than concerns of politicization of the U.S. Attorney General's office.
* It would seem in order to assert such privilege one must, at a minimum, appear. Some questions asked may clearly not be covered by the privilege claim, in which case Bolton and Miers would be expected to answer.

I would certainly expect the full House to vote in favor of bringing contempt charges against both Bolton and Miers on a straight party-line vote ... at which point it would be the responsibility of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Colombia to prosecute the case. Hmmmm ... a Bush-administration attorney responsible for prosecuting contempt charges against two former Bush aides in a matter concerning Bush's politicization of the AG department. Anyone want to guess the odds of the case actually being prosecuted?

White House press secretary Dana Perino seemed insouciant in responding to reporter's questions on the matter yesterday afternoon, predicting "It won't go anywhere."

Of course it won't - she knows the fix is in.

Assuming this scenario plays out as expected, Dems should remember this in early 2009. If a Democrat wins the Presidency a year from now, the matter can always be revisited then - and should be.

What Democratic Congress?

A Greenwald post I read yesterday referenced this Gallop poll addressing Presidential and Congressional approval ratings. The poll showed a 3% uptick in presidential approval when compared to August, while Congress doubled that figure, showing a 6% rise in approval ratings.

The numbers themselves are not particularly surprising ... it's the details behind the Congressional numbers which might make one do a double-take.

As the poll analysis notes, Congressional approval among Independents actually dropped by 3 points (from 17% to 14%) and while approval among Democrats rose, it was by a statistically insignificant margin (21% to 23%) ... which leaves only one group to account for the net 6% rise. Hint - it's not the Green Party, or the Communists.

No, the gain in Congressional approval ratings rests almost entirely on the shoulders of Republicans, who more than doubled their support, going from 18% approval last month to 37% approval this month. That's a shocking figure. Voters of the party not in control of Congress have a better opinion of Congress than those that presumably elected the majority ... and it's not by some small, statistically insignificant figure, but rather by a whopping 14 percentage points.

On recollection, however, why not? After all, voters elected Democrats to the majority largely because they saw the country as headed in the wrong direction on a number of issues, most particularly the Iraq war. However, what exactly has the new majority done to address these issues? Some reform to Congressional lobbying statutes have been passed, but what else?

On wiretapping and other privacy rights, the "Democratic" Congress couldn't work fast enough to provide the administration with everything it wanted. Now the administration is pressing hard for legislation to absolve telecom companies which helped it break privacy laws in the past, and everything points to Congress acceding to this as well - even though a majority of citizens are opposed.

Attempts last week to restore habeas corpus rights failed in the face of a Republican filibuster, despite actually garnering a majority of votes in the Senate, and despite being supported by a majority of Americans.

Perhaps most obviously, Congress has done exactly nothing (nada, nil, zero, zilch) whatsoever to accelerate our exit from Iraq, which was most certainly the primary reason Democrats were restored to the majority in the first place. Instead, a supplementary funding bill was passed with some milestones attached, but failure to meet the vast majority of those milestones is apparently not viewed by the administration or most Republican members of Congress as a reason to leave, no matter what an ever-growing majority of Americans might want.

With a new funding bill needed as early as next month, and despite some moderately tough rhetoric, there is no reason whatsoever to think the Democratic majority will grow the necessary cojones to actually do something, such as pass a war funding bill with actual, hard limitations attached to it.

Why shouldn't Republicans be happier with the performance of Congress? On what substantial issue this year has the administration and Republicans not had their way? The only thing that comes to mind is immigration reform, and that was because the administration and Congressional Republicans were on different sides of the issue, so one or the other had to be disappointed - and, hey, the Congressional minority ended up "winning".

For some reason Democrats seem worried about filibusters and vetoes. Senate Republicans threaten to veto something, and Democrats agree to simple cloture votes. The President threatens to veto something, and Democrats refuse to challenge him on it. They seem to have entirely forgotten they were elected precisely because the majority of the electorate wants someone to stand up and say "enough is enough".

Make Republicans filibuster. So what if things get held up while they are taking turns talking themselves blue - nothing substantial the majority wants is getting done anyway because Senate Republicans are blocking votes in history-shattering numbers, all in an attempt to protect the President from being forced to veto legislation they know the majority of Americans want.

With any luck, enough of them will get sufficiently tired of their own voices to actually let a bill through for the President to veto ... then we can in plain black-and-white who really doesn't support the troops.

September Storm

Last fall saw what was widely perceived as a pivotal election. Democrats took control of the House (which was expected, although the margin was larger than anticipated) and the Senate (which was a large surprise ... some pickups were expected, but not six). The unquestioned impetus for this revocation of Republicans was Iraq occupation, and the demands of the electorate that "something" be done about it.

What started off as a Congress filled with hope saw some early successes such as an increase in the minimum wage. However, the elephant in the room wasn't addressed until April, and ultimately the hopes of the majority of voters were denied when Congress passed a no-strings war funding bill to last through the summer. Not surprisingly, rather than being hailed as "bi-partisan", the story was instead how Democrats had backed-down in the face of demands from one of the least popular Presidents in our history.

Still, there remained some small beacon of light - at the end of the summer the spending bill wold lapse, and Congress would review the situation to see if the President's escalation merited further investment, both in lives and money, in what seemed increasingly like a quagmire.

Skip ahead to mid-August. Despite a series of claims of an improving military situation - including, but not limited to, the now (in)famous O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed piece in the NY Times, or the relentlessly warmongering Joe Lieberman (who recently pushed for action against Syria) - it's questionable as to whether the situation is really improving at all. As I have noted before, the military says attacks and civilian casualties are on the decline, but provides no actual numbers to support it. Independently compiled statistics seem to indicate civilian casualties are stable, but attacks have actually increased by 5%, which would directly contradict the claims of improvement.

Perhaps most importantly, US troop losses aren't showing any notable decline, and the loss of 14 more yesterday doesn't help in that regard.

Despite how they like to present their visits on talk shows and in op-eds, when O'Hanlon, Pollack, Lieberman, et. al. visit Iraq, they don't really visit Iraq. What they do is spend time in the Green Zone, maybe head out to a few cities where they visit with military officials, and maybe some carefully vetted Iranian representatives, and are essentially reliant for their "impressions" and "opinions" solely on information from these sources, information which they really can't verify.

Never mind that the opinion of those who actually are out risking their lives every day, those who really can attest to what the daily situation is like on the streets of Iraq, is nearly 180 degrees away from what these hit-and-run visitors present.

The latest to participate in one of these dog-and-pony shows is Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who returned from an extensive two-day survey the situation to announce:

"We visited forward operating bases in Mosul and Baghdad. In these areas, as well as a number of others in Iraq, the military aspects of President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq, as articulated by him on January 10, 2007, appear to have produced some credible and positive results. "

...

"We note the continuing improvement in the ability and willingness of the Iraqi Army to conduct combat operations against the insurgents ..."

That would be the same Iraqi army who, along with Iraqi police, are helping insurgents place bombs along roadsides to kill Americans. Yes, that's progress.

Levin goes on to mention that while the military aspects may be improving, he sees little (if any) hope in the political realm. Of course, that caveat fails to get any mention ... all the headlines are along the lines of: "Surge working, Levin says".

It doesn't take the Oracle of Delphi to see where this is headed. Even though the entire point of the surge was to allow the Iraqi government to make some hard political decisions, which it has utterly failed to do, it won't take many Democratic defections to pass another military bill free of constraints such as time lines for withdrawal, despite that being the key underlying reason many of the freshman Democrats were elected in the first place.

These days you see a lot of posts at conservative sites (why, here's one now!) discussing how Congress "is even more unpopular than Bush". Which is true. It's the reasons for that unpopularity which they don't discuss, but which are most interesting.

A CBS poll from earlier this month spells it out nicely (via Greenwald):

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?"
						.
		Approve	Disapprove	Unsure
		%	%	%
	ALL adults	25	63	12
	Republicans	24	66	10
	Democrats	28	59	13
	Independents	23	66	11

The approval ratings among Republicans is actually somewhat high when compared to the percentage of Democrats who approved the last Republican Congress. Independents are lower, but not by a huge margin. What really stands out is the low percentage of Democrats who approve of the job Congress is doing. If that number were up in, say, the mid-60's, which is pretty typical for members of the party which controls Congress, the overall approval rating would be pretty standard.

Those disaffected Democrats (and one suspects a large number of the disaffected Independents) aren't upset because Congress "isn't supporting the troops", or is "micromanaging the war" or any other Limbaugh-led talking point. They're pissed off (and increasingly more so) because this Congress was elected large to create opposition to the administrations policies - to actually do something about warrentless wiretapping, about habeas corpus, about, most importantly, getting our young men and women out of Iraq.

All of which this Congress has steadfastly refused to do.

If Levin et. al. manage to talk themselves into caving to the President again next month, allowing yet another unfettered prolonging of the war ... well, if you want to see Congress play limbo with its approval ratings, there may never be a better opportunity

Congressional Exodus

Shortly after the last elections, as the magnitude of the Democratic victory became apparent and people started to discuss the ramifications, one item which was speculated about was how many Republicans in the House, having become comfortable in majority status, might find themselves chaffing after being newly relegated to the minority.

We may be finding out.

Deborah Pryce, a Republican from Ohio's 15th district announced today she will retire when her term ends next year, after serving 16 years in Congress. It's an open secret J. Dennis Hastert, Republican from the Illinois 14th district is expected to announce plans tomorrow to retire as well when his 11th term ends. There is even speculation he may not finish the term, necessitating a special election to fill his seat.

These aren't just an House members. Hastert is the former Speaker of the House, having filled that position longer than any other Republican in history. He's 65 now, though, and had indicated several months ago he was contemplating retirement. The potential surprise here is if he opts to leave early. There is no obvious "successor" to his seat, and if a special election were held and a Democrat were to win the seat, it could portend an ugly 2008 for Republicans.

Pryce is a bit more of a surprise. She was in the 4th position in GOP Congressional leadership prior to the last elections and is only 56. Were the Republicans to gain the majority again in 2008 or 2010, maybe even 2012 she would be well-positioned to claim an even higher role.

The last few elections have become increasingly difficult for her, though, and she only one by a fingernail last year in a race which came down to a recount. Her opponent in that race, Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, has already announced she will seek a rematch next year. With 2008 shaping up as potentially another Republican disaster (The Economist has said Republican strategists are already describing 2008 as "a catastrophe" or "Armageddon", barring some unforeseen drastic change in the landscape) she may have seen the handwriting on the wall.

It's not surprising there would be some turnover. People burn out, people find other things they want to do, etc. When you are talking about 180 or so people, some of them are going to leave voluntarily. However, having two fairly high profile Republicans announce nearly simultaneously their plans to step down has the potential to open the floodgates.

If the Republican party finds itself having to defend a number of open seats (and I haven't even mentioned Arizona's own Rick Renzi here) in a steadily deteriorating political environment ... well, it may not actually be Armageddon, but it might feel like it to conservatives.

Update: Another Republican, Chip Pickering of MS-3, said yesterday he would not seek re-election in 2008 after six terms in office.

This is not a terribly competitive seat, and whoever the Republican candidate is should hold the seat comfortably. However, the retirement of Pickering, who is only 44 and would have been expected to win re-election easily (he faced to opposition last year) is another signal that some number of Republicans may not be enjoying the transition to being the minority party.

The beat goes on ...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is testifying before Congress again. One wonders why. He continues to apparently have no knowledge whatsoever about how his office works. When asked outright how many attorneys he had fired he claimed not to know. He doesn't know, his aides all don't know, no one knows.

Apparently, some magical list * poofed * into existence on his desk with a series of names of people to be fired, and Gonzales simply signed the list without questioning it ... because, you know, it's not like attorneys to be skeptical or ask questions of anything. One assumes the mystical appearance of the list suddenly appearing in front of him convinced him of it's divine provenance, or something like that. Who was he to question God (or President Bush -- apparently members of the current administration often conflate the two).

Gonzales claimed he hadn't made the now infamous hospital-room trip to visit John Ashcroft in order to get Ashcroft to overturn his deputy's decision vis-a-vis the warrentless surveillance program not having sufficient legal authority. Shortly after, he was forced to admit he did take a reauthorization order with him on his little foray. What, he just took that along as some bed time reading? That's a close an admission of lying to Congress as one is likely to get.

Senator Patrick Leahy has flat out told Gonzales "I don't trust you." Other Senators have followed in the same vein. Senator Herb Kohl asked why Gonzales should be kept on, which Gonzales admitted "That's a very good question, Senator", before going on to give a not very good response.

Same game, second round. Gonzales knows nothing, hears nothing, does nothing, yet somehow expects people to have confidence in his ability to repair the credibility and morale issues within the department. Why not? It's the same tack the administration is taking on Iraq: "Sure, we've botched everything horribly, we lied about our motivations for invading in the first place, we've repeatedly been completely wrong on our predictions for how things would work out, but trust us - this time we really are on the road to stability there." A decade from now, these folks would still be asking for "six more months", and blaming "defeatist liberal attitudes" for the ongoing lack of progress.

The House judiciary committee will move forward with pressing contempt charges against Harriett Miers and Joshua Bolton tomorrow. It's a complete waste of time -- the word is already out on the street any statutory contempt case won't be prosecuted by the US Attorney's office. That's the same US Attorney's office presided over by the oh-so-incompetent Alberto Gonzales. If there is one thing we can trust him on, it's that the office certainly won't do anything to support a Congressional investigation into possible wrong-doings within ... well ... within itself. Still, I guess formalities must be preserved. I don't believe there has been an inherent contempt case tried within Congress since the 1930's, I am looking forward to witnessing a small piece of history.

While Gonzales and the administration are doing their best to be obstructionist, Republicans in Congress don't want to get left out of the fun. Remember all those complaints they had about Democratic filibusters? Remember the nuclear option? Apparently they feel no need to lead by example. McClatchy Newspapers had an article last week highlighting just how out-of-hand things have become.

While the number of filibusters has definitely been on a general upward rise, the current group of Republicans is on pace shatter the old record of 58 in a two-year session. With 42 cloture votes so far (that's nearly 1/6 of all Senate votes, according to the article, if the pace were maintained it would lead to 153 over the course of the term.

Of course, that isn't enough ... when legislation does get passed, such as an ethics bill which garnered a 97-2 majority, things get held up ... either it's our own Senator Jon Kyl placing a secret hold, or it's delays in naming members to a committee negotiating differences with the House. It's the best of all worlds! All those Republican Senators can claim they voted for the ethics bill without, you know, actually having to take a chance on those tighter standards actually being applied.

It's just part of the "game" now. Filibuster everything, hold stuff that you don't think can be safely filibustered, and then claim Democrats aren't getting anything done. Meanwhile, smile and discuss the need for "more bipartisanship".

Just another day in D.C.

Permanent Filibuster

The Senate had a sleepover last night, as Senate majority leader Harry Reid kept debate open on whether or not a bill to set a timeline to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq would get a voe. Although there were 52 votes in favor of bringing the matter to a formal vote, 60 were needed since Republicans were effectively filibustering the bill.

The Washington Post reports that, as part of the negotiations surrounding the matter minority leader Mitch McConnell suggested any Iraq-related amendment automatically require 60 votes to pass. Apparently this had been agreed to in a similar situation some months ago as a means of short-cutting certain procedural steps.

Think about that for a moment. McConnell is essentially stating outright that on any matter related to Iraq, if it might involve any restrictions on the President's handling of affairs then it will be filibustered. Senate Republicans are in a state of permanent filibuster, against the repeatedly expressed will of the citizens they purportedly represent.

Of course, McConnell and company could allow straight votes on the matters, knowing the President would veto the bill anyhow. However, they knowsthat would only make the President look bad (well, worse than he already does), and we can't be having that, now can we? So instead, they throw every possible parliamentary obstacle in the way as a means to protect the clown occupying the Oval Office for another 17 months.

Then they'll blame Democrats for "not passing legislation" or some such tripe.